A Tip of the Hat to Change
"What makes this world so hard to see clearly is not its strangeness but its usualness. Familiarity can blind you too. " ~Robert M. Persig
The San Antonio Sun shines brighter and hotter than it does in the rest of the world. I don’t know if the land was cursed or if the heat and humidity gods decided to dwell here together with torturous pleasures in mind. But they work well together and are succeeding in making everyone uncomfortable.
It rained the day I moved to San Antonio. I could tell you that symbolically this means that I am going to have many “rainy” days here or that San Antonio has a “dark cloud” moving amongst it and the cloud arrived with me. Or I could tell you that it meant nothing and it was a simple matter of a cold front merging with a warm front to provide the perfect ingredients for rain. However, I choose to consider none of these and like to think that the rain on my moving day to San Antonio is symbolic to the effects of my life compared to how rain affects the earth. With rain comes life. It is earth’s way of replenishing itself for further growth. And so the change from blinding familiarity, from the suffocation of usualness, to this barren and naked land will hopefully bring with it a deep, fresh inhale of life.
Central Texas is a strange place environmentally speaking. It is a confused teenager struggling to find its identity. A cross between its brothers, the wooded East Texas and the deserted West Texas, Central Texas decided to take the worst of its brothers’ attributes and try to make good of them. Well, what Central Texas produced was a dry, cracked land that is good for nothing to a farmer and miserable job conditions for a blue-collar construction worker. Its trees are small and look as if they are stretching out and gasping for air. The shrubs are hard and all of them have their own creative ways of poking and sticking you. San Antonio shrubs now come with a new adaptation and force allowing them to effectively penetrate the mesh of tennis shoes. Where they would once just attached but did not enter the shoe, they now can mobilize through the shoe and poke and stick the foot and effectively irritating the enemy. My aunt and I painstakingly call these new weapons “stealth missiles” due to their missile-like shape and camouflaging abilities making them hard to locate and avoid. I honestly don’t know why people first came to this area. They didn't listen to obvious cries of the land screaming "keep off" by growing the world's best prickly-plant population. You can’t farm it and it is ridiculously hot. The only thing I can think of, and appropriately effective, is “Remember the Alamo!” But, I do know why people now come and why they stay. It is because of a company called USAA that employs half the city, also it is the closest big city to the border of Mexico and needs a lot of construction labor which makes up for the other half of the city, and they all stay because of commonly threaded needle that is deeply stitched on the hearts of every San Anton proudly bearing the name of San Antonio Spurs.
Well, that might be overdoing it a little. But the moment the playoffs started the televisions and radios have all been tuned and programmed to the games of the Spurs. Buildings have banners encouraging their team creatively with “Go Spurs Go!” Cars are tattooed with Spurs bumper stickers and some have flags waving proudly from windows their team’s brilliant colors of black and grey (some people will fancy it up a little and tell you it's silver. Well, it's not, it's grey). And, to top it off, as a way of giving thanks to the city’s only professional sports team, Diamond Shamrock gives away free coffee citywide the morning after a win. The Spur’s star-players are loved affectionately. Tim Duncan, Toni Parker, and my favorite Manu Ginoboli (That white boy has game!) succeded in bringing the champion's trophey back to San Antonio. And of course, the players of yore, the one who put the Spurs on the map, The Colonel, David Robinson.
Recently, I have been attending church at Oak Hills Church. And for you curious-minded people, yes it is just Church. No Baptist or of Christ added to the end. It also has somehow escaped being labeled as apart of the fastest growing accidental Christian Denomination today, which is humorously called the Non-denominational Church. It is the church that is pastured by the well-known Christian Author Max Lucado. Some inside to this, because I know you’re thinking it, he’s not as good of a preacher as I was hoping for. Comfortable speaker, obviously, but his sermons are actually normal and have yet to include an “Ah-ha” moment. Also, as far as insider information and good speakers go, keep an ear out for a guy named Fareed Tulbah. He is currently the Singles Minister at Oak Hills and fills in for Max when he is off doing his fame thing. He his not a tall guy, but his powerful and penetrating speeches make him tall in your mind. Every word not spoken and every silent moment befallen was on purpose and well used. His ability for inflection and dialect to give rise and sorrow to the audience is well timed. Anyways, it too is no secret that this is the same church that David Robinson not only attends but serves as deacon to. Well, The Colonel and I had a little run-in last Sunday at church. I am sitting in the back in the stadium-like seating when he strolls his seven-foot self to the seat directly in front of me. And with my unimpressed-with-fame attitude, the first thought I think is “Just great, now I can’t see!” Later, during the greeting, I shook is oversized hand and accompanied it with a disgruntled and fake “Good morning. How are you?” and he returned the brightest and most sincere smile known to man and it eased my grumpy, early-morning hatred of people towards him. With him, he had two sons. One was about five feet tall and the other was about five feet six inches, so I’m guessing they are between 5 and 7 years old. Just watching David Robinson with them and seeing his good natured gentleness towards people all followed by his smile makes him hard to not like.
So, having been here a month and observing the changes around me I feel that I have learned and will learn so much about me and people in general. I am enjoying seeing the world from another view. Even as it pricks me along the way, the clearer it becomes the more I want to see, taking down its strangeness by the glass and getting drunk on the spirits of the peculiarity of change.
The San Antonio Sun shines brighter and hotter than it does in the rest of the world. I don’t know if the land was cursed or if the heat and humidity gods decided to dwell here together with torturous pleasures in mind. But they work well together and are succeeding in making everyone uncomfortable.
It rained the day I moved to San Antonio. I could tell you that symbolically this means that I am going to have many “rainy” days here or that San Antonio has a “dark cloud” moving amongst it and the cloud arrived with me. Or I could tell you that it meant nothing and it was a simple matter of a cold front merging with a warm front to provide the perfect ingredients for rain. However, I choose to consider none of these and like to think that the rain on my moving day to San Antonio is symbolic to the effects of my life compared to how rain affects the earth. With rain comes life. It is earth’s way of replenishing itself for further growth. And so the change from blinding familiarity, from the suffocation of usualness, to this barren and naked land will hopefully bring with it a deep, fresh inhale of life.
Central Texas is a strange place environmentally speaking. It is a confused teenager struggling to find its identity. A cross between its brothers, the wooded East Texas and the deserted West Texas, Central Texas decided to take the worst of its brothers’ attributes and try to make good of them. Well, what Central Texas produced was a dry, cracked land that is good for nothing to a farmer and miserable job conditions for a blue-collar construction worker. Its trees are small and look as if they are stretching out and gasping for air. The shrubs are hard and all of them have their own creative ways of poking and sticking you. San Antonio shrubs now come with a new adaptation and force allowing them to effectively penetrate the mesh of tennis shoes. Where they would once just attached but did not enter the shoe, they now can mobilize through the shoe and poke and stick the foot and effectively irritating the enemy. My aunt and I painstakingly call these new weapons “stealth missiles” due to their missile-like shape and camouflaging abilities making them hard to locate and avoid. I honestly don’t know why people first came to this area. They didn't listen to obvious cries of the land screaming "keep off" by growing the world's best prickly-plant population. You can’t farm it and it is ridiculously hot. The only thing I can think of, and appropriately effective, is “Remember the Alamo!” But, I do know why people now come and why they stay. It is because of a company called USAA that employs half the city, also it is the closest big city to the border of Mexico and needs a lot of construction labor which makes up for the other half of the city, and they all stay because of commonly threaded needle that is deeply stitched on the hearts of every San Anton proudly bearing the name of San Antonio Spurs.
Well, that might be overdoing it a little. But the moment the playoffs started the televisions and radios have all been tuned and programmed to the games of the Spurs. Buildings have banners encouraging their team creatively with “Go Spurs Go!” Cars are tattooed with Spurs bumper stickers and some have flags waving proudly from windows their team’s brilliant colors of black and grey (some people will fancy it up a little and tell you it's silver. Well, it's not, it's grey). And, to top it off, as a way of giving thanks to the city’s only professional sports team, Diamond Shamrock gives away free coffee citywide the morning after a win. The Spur’s star-players are loved affectionately. Tim Duncan, Toni Parker, and my favorite Manu Ginoboli (That white boy has game!) succeded in bringing the champion's trophey back to San Antonio. And of course, the players of yore, the one who put the Spurs on the map, The Colonel, David Robinson.
Recently, I have been attending church at Oak Hills Church. And for you curious-minded people, yes it is just Church. No Baptist or of Christ added to the end. It also has somehow escaped being labeled as apart of the fastest growing accidental Christian Denomination today, which is humorously called the Non-denominational Church. It is the church that is pastured by the well-known Christian Author Max Lucado. Some inside to this, because I know you’re thinking it, he’s not as good of a preacher as I was hoping for. Comfortable speaker, obviously, but his sermons are actually normal and have yet to include an “Ah-ha” moment. Also, as far as insider information and good speakers go, keep an ear out for a guy named Fareed Tulbah. He is currently the Singles Minister at Oak Hills and fills in for Max when he is off doing his fame thing. He his not a tall guy, but his powerful and penetrating speeches make him tall in your mind. Every word not spoken and every silent moment befallen was on purpose and well used. His ability for inflection and dialect to give rise and sorrow to the audience is well timed. Anyways, it too is no secret that this is the same church that David Robinson not only attends but serves as deacon to. Well, The Colonel and I had a little run-in last Sunday at church. I am sitting in the back in the stadium-like seating when he strolls his seven-foot self to the seat directly in front of me. And with my unimpressed-with-fame attitude, the first thought I think is “Just great, now I can’t see!” Later, during the greeting, I shook is oversized hand and accompanied it with a disgruntled and fake “Good morning. How are you?” and he returned the brightest and most sincere smile known to man and it eased my grumpy, early-morning hatred of people towards him. With him, he had two sons. One was about five feet tall and the other was about five feet six inches, so I’m guessing they are between 5 and 7 years old. Just watching David Robinson with them and seeing his good natured gentleness towards people all followed by his smile makes him hard to not like.
So, having been here a month and observing the changes around me I feel that I have learned and will learn so much about me and people in general. I am enjoying seeing the world from another view. Even as it pricks me along the way, the clearer it becomes the more I want to see, taking down its strangeness by the glass and getting drunk on the spirits of the peculiarity of change.
posted by Luke Lockwood at 6/25/2005 12:14:00 AM
2 comments
